Tying your Online Business Together

When you started your online business, there were probably a hundred little tasks that didn’t take up much time, but needed to be done. Now, as your business has become more successful and demand has increased, those little tasks are taking up way too much of your time. You’re looking at buying new software to help you save time, but it’s all so expensive. Before you invest money into any more software, take a look at the software you have and how you can make it work better for you.

How?

The secret is to make all your different applications work together.

How?

By using plug-ins (not WordPress plugins) to merge your applications and make them work together, more efficiently, for you.

How?

Hold your horses, I’m getting to that part!

By utilizing plug-ins, you can streamline your processes. Before, you would have to take information out of one program and manually input it into another. With these programs, you can get the applications to send the information straight from the first into the second. As your online business grows and small tasks become multiplied by a thousand, this can save you a ton of time. The more business you get, the more time you can save.

There are many different kinds of technologies available to make software programs share information. Some cost tens of thousands of dollars a year (guess who makes that one? It’s one word and starts with M), but there are many open-source programs available at low-to-no cost for the budget-constrained small online business owner. The more popular a program is, and the more a program is used in conjunction with another, the greater the chances that there is an open-source plug-in available for free.

Datasync http://www.datasyncsuite.com – open-source application that links up other open-source software, such as Joomla and Zimbra; enables you to access them all with a single sign on. Cost – Free to download, available also at about $40 a month per user for a hosted version that comes with tech support.